I'm wondering what word or phrase could be used for the counter examples of 'Midas touch' effect.

The Midas touch, or the gift of profiting from whatever one undertakes, is named for a legendary king of Phrygia. Midas was granted the power to transmute whatever he touched into gold.
http://www.mythweb.com/today/today04.html

For example: "Jack has the Midas touch but is still penniless because Sally is/has ?????"

I always thought it should be "The merde-is touch" :-)
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T.E.D.Apr 18 '12 at 16:25

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Absolutely. Sally has a credit card
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user20287Apr 18 '12 at 21:03

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This reminds me of the story of Calamity Jane. Was there any similar phrase used? Legends say that while she was a kind person, a lot of people who came in contact with her suffered ill fates.
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vszApr 19 '12 at 6:07

Hmm, but I don't think I've ever heard someone say, "Sally has the kiss of death", meaning she brings ruin on everyone. People say that an event was the kiss of death, like, "This new tax will be the kiss of death for our company." I guess you could say, "Sally's involvement was the kiss of death for ..." as Monica begings the post, but you wouldn't say that Sally is or has the kiss of death. If that meets the OP's requirement, then great, maybe I'm just nitpicking saying that it isn't really parallel to "Midas touch".
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JayApr 19 '12 at 14:24

The problem with evil eye is it implies malicious intent. The problem with jinx is it often implies misfortune for the jinxed person, rather than for those around him. If someone unintentionally brings bad luck to others...

It's from the Old Testament Hebrew prophet who, having been thrown overboard from a ship in which he was fleeing from God, was swallowed by a great fish and vomited onto dry land.

From the other sailors' point of view, having Jonah aboard obviously wasn't a good thing. I don't know if the Bible records what happened to the rest of the crew on the original occasion, but sailors in general have long used "a Jonah" to mean a person (either a sailor or a passenger) whose presence on board brings bad luck and endangers the ship. From which it's passed into common parlance to mean anyone who brings bad luck to any enterprise.

That is probably closest to the meaning the OP is looking for, but I don't think I've ever heard this in common usage, and anyone not familiar with the story will be confused. Even I found it confusing initially because bringing bad luck to those around him was not the main point of the story of Jonah.
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FrustratedWithFormsDesignerApr 18 '12 at 18:17

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I really like this answer as it mirrors "Midas" nicely. Midas was ultimately brought to ruin by his "gift" but no one thinks about this when using this phrase. Similarly, no one thinks about the fact that Jonah ultimately did what God asked and ended up saving a whole city
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KevinApr 18 '12 at 18:18

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I agree with @FrustratedWithFormsDesigner. If I heard "he's a Jonah" or "he's got the Jonah touch" without the context of this question, I'd be thinking of fish bellies, not the turbulence. (If I chose to puzzle it out I'd probably get it, but we don't want people to have to puzzle out idioms most of the time.) This would be a nice usage to spread, though!
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Monica CellioApr 18 '12 at 18:46

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@Frustrated,Monica: I'm a bit surprised, since I know both you guys are "competent speakers" in general. Truth to tell, if I ever did know about Jonah being swallowed up & vomited out by the whale (and thus surviving), I'd long forgotten it until I did the checking here. But "He's a [right] Jonah!" seems commonplace to me, from high-tech office staff to building site workers. Perhaps it's another of those UK/US diferences. But I will say "He's got the Jonah touch" sounds weird to me - I only know it in the form I've set out.
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FumbleFingersApr 18 '12 at 21:37

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@FumbleFingers: Yes, it might be regional. I have never heard the term used in Canadaian/US offices (IT and financial industries).
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FrustratedWithFormsDesignerApr 18 '12 at 21:38

The "reverse Midas touch" is popularly used and I think, unfortunately, comes the closest to what you're looking for. The "kiss of death" doesn't really have any financial connotations and refers to an action rather than a personal quality - the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "a seemingly kind or well-intentioned action, look, association, etc., which brings disastrous consequences."

Search the archives of any news publication (like the NY Times) to see published instances of "reverse Midas touch."

This made me laugh, but it does hinge on whether Sally is a fraud or just unlucky/incompetent.
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Monica CellioApr 18 '12 at 16:22

Cute, but odds are that within a few years no one will remember poor Bernie Madoff, and this reference will just be confusing.
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JayApr 19 '12 at 14:35

RE the "gendered allocation": He didn't say that all women are spendthrifts or whatever Sally's problem is, just this one particular woman. If I say, "Carl loses his temper easily", do you take that as a criticism of all men? All Norwegians? ("Carl" being a Norwegian name.) Or simply of Carl?
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JayApr 19 '12 at 14:43

Jack has the Midas touch but is still penniless because Sally can't catch a break.

It's not as extreme as some of the other suggestions, but catch a break is defined idiomatically as being able to get a moment of fortune or luck in difficult times. To my ears, those two idioms seem well-balanced, particularly when talking about fortune and investing.

For the record, I also like Monica's proposed "kiss of death"as a metaphorical complement to "Midas touch".

What is interesting to me is that the idiom itself "Midas touch" has a positive connotation. But the whole point of the orignal myth is that it ends up being a curse. So really, wouldn't a reverse midas touch be something where at first it looks like it's ruined, but in the end the event/item in question is better off than expected?

Reminds me of semantics and Through the Looking Glass: 'When I use a word, ... it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.' Strictly speaking, the opposite might be something that was bestowed upon you that you didn't wish for, that caused you to be able to constantly eat your fill and become supremely healthy.
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jabolotaiApr 19 '12 at 11:39

This is why I think @vsz's Calamity Jane works so well. It appears to be a curse on Jane, but it increases her fame, and thereby her fortune, though then it doesn't necessarily fit the context of the sentence in question...
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user14070Apr 19 '12 at 12:56

The oldest and plainest word to describe this situation is "curse". You can plainly say that "Sally is a curse" and I think that most English speakers would understand.

Being a geek who like to make cultural references, both obvious and obscure, I prefer the following:

When everything someone touches breaks or becomes ruined it is called the Urkel Effect. You can say that "Sally has the Urkel Effect" or you could even say that "Sally is an Urkel".

For those unfamiliar with the character, he is from a 1990's American sitcom called "Family Matters". The character is dorky and nerdy, and though extremely intelligent, everything he is involved in that is not one of his science experiments is inevitably ruined. After destroying something and receiving evil glares from those around him he would often say "Did I do that?"

Tom Au made the next best thing that I think will mean more to more people. "Butterfingers" has long been a phrase to imply that a simple mishandling can ruin the whole thing. It likely started with sports (likely baseball) where a player could have easily caught the ball, but dropped it instead. He is said to have butterfingers. But it is that one simply mistake that could cost the team the win. In other applications, people with "butterfingers" are usually not allowed to move or lift breakable things, work on delicate projects that require a steady hand, etc.

The issue with butterfingers is that it cannot easily apply to non-physical tasks. You would likely not say that Sally as financially ruined Jack because she has butterfingers. You would say, however, that Jack doesn't have any nice things because Sally has butterfingers.